The main title of Jack Arnold's "Incredible Shrinking Man" features a trumpet solo by Ray Anthony as mentioned in the title sequence of the film. I must admit i'm still haunted by this theme every time i watch this movie.

Does anybody know if this particular title was ever commercially released by Ray Anthony on vinyl/cd ?

And if not how are chances for a future release of this theme and maybe more stuff from that great movie ?

I guess the perfect address for such a release are the guys at Monstrous Movie Music with their fine instinct for unique and unusual movie music.

Yes, Ray Anthony did record this haunting theme for Capitol on F3676 (backed with "This Could Be The Night") but I've never heard it so not sure if it sounds anything like the version played on the soundtrack.

There's a suite of Shrinking Man on the old Intrada Salter CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON disc. For some reason the nice Shrinking Man conclusion music isn't on there and they used the conclusion from THIS ISLAND EARTH instead(was this a mistake?)

The Tony Thomas and then Intrada release of SM was just from Hans Salter's acetates/reels. No Gertz or Stein on there. If somebody can use the search function and find my previous post about THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN, I described the history of the ending music in that post. It was written by Herman Stein. I think the "End Title" from THIS ISLAND EARTH just happened to be on Salter's SM reel -- probably edited onto it for some reason -- and nobody noticed it when they released the Salter cues.

Yes, if we decide to do more of these MMM releases, SHRINKING MAN is at the top of the list, especially as Gertz and Stein are still around. We have all the sketches, and it's some of Gertz's finest music, and the score he's most proud of out of the nearly-200 that he wrote. Lots of great atmospheric stuff, and that wonderful spider music! I have a copy of the original tracks for Stein's End Music, and I wish I could give you folks a taste, but copyright issues prevent it. It is a glorious piece of music, every bit as good as the poetic narration closing the movie.

While still searching for that particular track i ended up at Barnes & Noble. They have a Ray Anthony album titled "Plymouth Show" released in 2005 featuring the track "Incredible Shrinking Man" which lasts 2:05 minutes. There is also a short 30sec-clip available. The recording informations at CD Universe say that this recording is from 1956 arranged by Don Simpson.

While still searching for that particular track i ended up at Barnes & Noble. They have a Ray Anthony album titled "Plymouth Show" released in 2005 featuring the track "Incredible Shrinking Man" which last 2:05 minutes. There is also a short 30sec-clip available. The recording informations at CD Universe say that this recording is from 1956 arranged by Don Simpson.

It was written by the talented Herman Stein, who also wrote much music for TARANTULA, THIS ISLAND EARTH, IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE, THE DUEL AT SILVER CREEK, NO NAME ON THE BULLET, CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON, BACKLASH, BLACK SHIELD OF FALWORTH, THE INTRUDER, LOST IN SPACE, THE LAWLESS BREED, and on and on and on.

Stein did NOT want the woman's vocalizations in the music. They were put in there without his consent. The way he originally orchestrated it would have been much better. What the heck is a woman doing droning while a man's shrinking to near-sub-atomic levels? I studied physics in college and droning women and the microscopic simply do NOT belong together!

Have just watched this DVD again this afternoon - seem to enjoy it more every time..! I love the music, especially the famous "spider" music, and as there's little in the way of dialogue for the second half of the picture, apart from a few tarantula hisses and giant nail scrapings, a direct transfer from the film soundtrack onto CD is probably the only way we're going to hear this great score for the time being. The music's almost continuous for the second half and is a real tour de force.. I'm hoping too for a release of somekind..

Just watched this one again in memory of Richard Matheson, and then went scuttling over to the MMM website to check to see if the score had materialized since this thread appeared seven years ago. Man-o-man, I'd love to have this music, David, if you could ever make this happen. That trumpet theme is haunting.

I used to have the 45 rpm recording of the Ray Anthony theme. It wasn't the same as the track heard in the film. The record was a bit more orchestral, a bit more Manciniesque. I much prefer the more serious performance as heard at the beginning of the film.

About a year ago I found the original demo recording made at Universal of the tune ("The Girl in a Lonely Room"), which served as the "Main Title" for THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN. It's amazing how similar the film version is to the demo that was used to pitch the song to the studio. I spent about 20 years trying to find some artifact pertaining to that song that appears on the movie's cue sheets, but never did I imagine I'd find the actual record. Maybe one of these days Universal will give me permission to release it as a bonus on some other CD so fans of the film can hear it. Until then, it is being safely stored in my music archive.

Although I would love to re-record the score, re-recordings are so expensive to do properly these days, and the market is just way too small to support it right now. But that's not to rule out the possibility down the line if factors change. Again, until then I have the scores for the entire movie, including some alternate fanfares that weren't used in the picture.

I believe the Capitol 45 was also reissued on the (probably unliscened) LP, GREAT SCIENCE FICTION FILM MUSIC, back in the 1978 (Poo Records LP104). It was collection of themes; some were original soundtrrack selections, but there a few obscure commercial (easy listening) re-recordings too (INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN, the love theme from FIRST MEN IN THE MOON, and Filby's Theme from THE TIME MACHINE). It was quite a thrilling LP when it first came out, as there was so little out there at the time in the way of older sci-fi music.